


Damn You Look Good And I'm Buying Waffles

by alex_txt



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, an enemies to lovers grocery store au, anyway this is like, bronx and ashlee are only mentioned, but idk, which everyone...needs...right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9403574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_txt/pseuds/alex_txt
Summary: Pete's a single dad trying to support his son, Bronx. He's merely doing his groceries when he gets stuck behind a tall, curly haired guy who appears to be using a whole trolley for only one solitary packet of waffles.Pete just wants to get out of there as quickly as possible. Gabe doesn't seem to want to let that happen...





	

**Author's Note:**

> By the way Fall Out Boy... just doesn't exsist in this universe and also Ashlee Simpson isn't famous...just go with it for The Story

Pete wandered the mall, absentmindedly looking in the shop windows. Well, technically, he was Christmas shopping, but he’d never been very good at it. So far he’d bought an action figure for Bronx (and an action figure for himself)and… well, that was it.

He sighed and looked down at the one bag in his hand. The trouble was, he really wasn’t sure he’d be able to afford to buy every presents this Christmas… or any of the remaining Christmases. He’d just been made redundant from his job, and even grocery stores were reluctant to hire a dude with tattoos, no degree and family commitment.

He sighed. He should really return the action figure he bought for himself.

But Bronx loved it when he joined in with his own…

Really, Bronx was more important than anyone else in his life, wasn’t he?

With his wallet feeling lighter and lighter in his pocket, he carried on shopping.

Pete turned to go into the grocery store, giving up entirely on his Christmas shopping. He needed to feed his son before anything else.

He raced around, throwing the essentials into his trolley haphazardly and making his way to the counter. God, even buying a packet of chips felt like a stretch when he had no source of income.

He got stuck in line behind a tall, curly haired guy. The dude had a whole, huge trolley and only one item in it. Pete peered around and saw that it was a packet of waffles. Just. A single packet. Of waffles. In a huge-ass trolley.

Pete rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. He was eager to get out of here and this guy was just wasting everyone’s time. There was an express lane for a reason.

The tall guy turned around, and for a second Pete forgot all purpose in life. His face was…nice. Handsome, even. One eye brow was raised slightly, hovering above his brown eyes. The way he’d turned meant that Pete got a great view of his jawline, how it curved from his chin upwards…

“You’re…nice….face…” Pete found himself blurting.

The eyebrow raised even further, but there was a touch of amusement twinkling in his eyes now. “I’m nice face?” He repeated mockingly, leaning his elbow on his almost empty trolley. The action brought Pete back to the matter at hand.

He puffed his chest up, suddenly aware of his (lack of) height compared to this giant. “Sorry, I was, uh, daydreaming. What I meant to say was -”

“You were daydreaming?” The guy interrupted.

“What? I mean, yeah, I was daydreaming. About. Um. A nice face. It doesn’t matter! What I was going to say was -”

“Hey, why dream about it when it’s right in front of you, baby?” Pete’s stomach dropped. His tone was… sarcastic, but his voice had also dropped a whole octave and he’d swaggered forward towards Pete, so that they were barely inches apart. Well, Pete was staring at the guy’s chest, but he was only inches from there. Was he… flirting with Pete? He almost started to sweat. He hadn’t thought about dating someone, of any gender, since Ashlee and him had divorced. That was almost three years ago, now.

Suddenly, he stepped back and howled wildly. “Oh my god I totally had you, dude! The look on your face!” He doubled over and held his stomach, shaking with laughter. “No-one ever falls for that! They normally just slap me before I even get there! Wow!”

Pete took a step forward, stood on his tiptoes, and reached up and slapped this dude in the face. Hard.

The laughing stopped immediately. Pete took a step back, satisfied at the shocked look on his face.

Then it was gone, replaced by a smirk and a smothered chuckle. “I guess I deserved that. I’m Gabe.” He extended a hand.

Pete pointedly ignored it.  “Yeah, Gabe you did deserve that, and for more reasons than one!” Pete said angrily, finding his confidence again. Gabe’s hand dropped from between them. “I mean, really, why the hell are you wasting everyone’s time by -”

Gabe started laughing again. “Sorry, little dude, I just can’t take you seriously when you’re so much shorter than me. You’re like…a chipmunk. Y’know? You’re a chip -”

“For God’s sake _Gabe_ , would you quit it? All I’ve been trying to do this whole time -”

“Hello, just this, thanks,” Gabe said to the cashier, loading his waffles onto the counter, and pointedly ignoring Pete.

“Of course, sir.” Gabe smiled courteously, and struck up a conversation with the cashier.

“You know, I used to work in a supermarket…” Gabe leaned an elbow on the counter. He might as well have batted his eyelashes and slid his number across the counter while he was at it.

 The cashier smiled back at him generously. “Really? It’s not a job I’d recommend, really” She laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Gabe laughed, and winked. “Well, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah I guess you could say that…”

Pete murmured under his breath as they kept chatting, as if this was a fucking coffee shop. The waffles had been scanned long ago, and were merely sitting under her hand as she stared at Gabe. Sure, he was charismatic, but he wasn’t charming enough to warrant her ignoring an entire line of angry, impatient customers waiting to be served. Pete checked behind him. He was the only one in line.

“Sorry,” he interjected. “But we’ve got a kid waiting at home and I’d love if you could move this along a little that would be brilliant.” He smiled through his teeth.

The cashier blinked at him. So did Gabe. They both looked slightly shocked.

The cashier recovered first. “Oh, of course, sir. Sorry, I had no idea you two were together.”

“What?” Pete asked, incredulous.

“Are you not? You said, just now, ‘we’ve got a kid waiting at home’… I just assumed…” She trailed off, uncertain.

“What? I totally did not say ‘we’.”

“Um…” Gabe drawled. “You totally did, dude.”

“What!? There’s no way. I know what I said. We’re not - It’s not - I don’t even know this guy!” Pete was starting to panic. The cashier looked at him disbelievingly, while Gabe was smothering a laugh behind his hand, which was not helping his case at all. “I - uh -” _Shit._ “I have multiple personality disorder!”

Gabe burst out laughing, swinging towards him and flashing a smile. Suddenly there was an arm around Pete’s shoulders. Gabe’s arm. Pete’s skin tingled under the contact.

“Sorry, ma’am. Five years in and he’s still worried about strangers judging us. I’ve always been like ‘love is love, we shouldn’t be ashamed’ but, eh, he’s still overly cautious, aren’t you babe?”

Gabe smiled dashingly at him, and plonked a kiss on his cheek. Pete managed to smile sheepishly, internally thinking _whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhattheactualfuckwhoisthisguy._

“Aww, that’s so sweet!” She charmed.  

Gabe moved around him and started loading Pete’s groceries onto the counter, still nattering away to the cashier. “He even makes me get a separate trolley, can you believe that? I look like a lunatic with only waffles in a _whole_ trolley!”

Pete sent Gabe a dark look.

Gabe returned it with - yet again - a raised eyebrow, as he loaded a pack of condoms and some lube onto the counter from Pete’s trolley.

Pete tried his hardest not to blush scarlet. God, this was meant to be a fucking normal shopping trip…it was _normal_ to buy those things…a guy had…needs… This was all Gabe’s fault. What the fuck was he doing here anyway, pretending to be his _husband_ , of all things. And - what the fuck - _why?_

The more Pete thought it through, the less and less sense anything made.

Gabe rolled the now empty trolley towards Pete, dancing slightly and winking as he did so. Pete merely rolled his eyes and pushed the trolley around the corner.

“That comes to $165.80” The cashier said.

Pete winced, knowing that was more than he could afford, and began pulling out his wallet. Gabe, however, stepped forwards, blocking Pete’s way.

Confused, but kind of relieved, really, Pete let him.

He produced several notes from his wallet - who the _fuck_ has that much cash? - , counting under his breath; “140…150…160…and 5…hmm do I have any coins?” He began throwing coins onto the counter, before muttering again and putting them back, then recounting his money, as though he had somehow forgotten that he’d already. reached. 165.

“Dude.” Pete interrupted. “Just. Pay. 166. And get. Some change.”

“No, but I want to get the change exactly right! It’s sooo annoying when you have to do maths as a cashier…I speak from experience here… I’m doing it for her!”

Gabe spoke so emphatically that the cashier merely blinked and accepted it.

“There we go, one hundred and sixty-five dollars, eighty cents exactly!” He announced proudly, sliding it across the counter. The cashier started putting it away, before Gabe slapped himself in the head. “Oh darn! I left my environmentally friendly bags at home! You don’t sell those do you?”

The cashier smiled patiently and presented some from under the counter. “They’re 50 cents each. How many do you need?”

Gabe surveyed the groceries. “Five, I think. What do you think, honey?”

It took Pete a moment, where he stood twitching with anger, to realise that ‘honey’ was him. “Oh? What? Um. I think we should just leave. Now. Bronx is waiting at home and I don’t want to leave him for too long.”

“Oh, speaking of, do you think Bronx will want a chocolate bar?”

Pete stared at him for a long minute.

“I think he will, don’t you, darling? I certainly do!” Gabe wandered over to the chocolate section and began sifting through the various chocolates. “Babe, does he prefer Mars bars or Crunchies? I can never remember which one…”

Gabe looked at Pete earnestly. Pete remained stoic.

Gabe blinked.

Pete blinked.

Gabe blinked.

Pete blinked.

“No, you’re right honey. Bronx doesn’t need the chocolate and neither do I!”

“Oh for fuck’s sAKE!”

Pete turned away from Gabe and his fucking weirdness - his fucking messed up life where he bought only waffles in a huge trolley and pretended to be people’s husbands after flirting with cashiers - and Pete just left.

He left the grocery store.

Fuck his groceries, Gabe could have them.

Fuck everything, he wanted to be home.

Fuck life, he needed a job.

He needed a way to support Bronx.

He needed someone who had enough money to pull boatload of cash out of his wallet to pay for _someone else’s groceries_.

Pete nearly stopped at the exit of the mall.

He nearly stopped and ran back to Gabe and pretended to be his husband and got his free groceries. It nearly occurred to him that Gabe might have been trying to do Pete a favour. Nearly.

Instead, Pete walked out the door and right to his car, loading his stupid action figures into the back seat and taking a moment to sit and fume.

He sat in silence and fumed with anger.

Who did Gabe think he was? WHO THE FUCK DID GABE THINK HE WAS!?

His anger, as per usual, only lasted a few minutes.

It quickly subsided to a numbing sadness. A numbing despair. Pete, truly, had no idea how he was going to support himself and Bronx.

And now he had no dinner for tonight.

He had failed to do even that.

God, he had failed Bronx. If he’d just been a little nicer to the weird guy in the supermarket… he’d have dinner. And he’d be able to afford tomorrow’s, because the weird guy was literally _paying for tonight’s_. No matter how weird Gabe was, Pete should’ve gone along with it to get free groceries. To get free anything.

Goddamn it, he didn’t even have any condoms.

Pete ran a hand down his face, surprised to see it came back wet with tears. He wasn’t _really_ crying in a parking lot, was he?

He dried his eyes. Shook himself together, and tried not to fall apart.

He would be fine. He had been so far. A job would come along eventually. Until then, he had Bronx.

And that’s all he really needed in life.

He was about to put the car into gear when a newly familiar face showed up at his window, holding several environmentally-friendly grocery bags and a chocolate bar between his teeth.

Startled, but filled with an inexplicable relief, Pete opened the passenger door and Gabe slid inside, leaning over and placing Pete’s groceries on the backseat. Gabe shut the door behind him and spat the chocolate bar out into his hand. He wiped it on his shirt before offering it to Pete, eyebrow raised.

Pete looked at the chocolate bar, still somewhat coated in Gabe’s saliva, and then back to Gabe.

Gabe made an offering gesture with it. Pete shook his head no. Gabe shrugged and tore the wrapper open himself.

A brief moment passed.

“Why are you here?” Pete asked.

Gabe shrugged. “I had your groceries”

Pete sighed. “Thank you. For the groceries. But, um. Why did you have my groceries.”

“Well, I -” Gabe paused. “I, uh, pretended to be your husband and paid for your groceries for you.”

Pete sighed again. “Why? Why would you… do that…for me?”

“At first… I was just, like, making fun of you. ‘Cause you seemed really angry, dude. Like, super angry.” Gabe laughed. Pete did not. “Um… and then you mentioned your son and, like, I don’t man. I guess I’ve just got this thing about kids…and I thought you must have been struggling…you seemed really stressed out…”

Pete sighed, yet again. “You got that right.”

Gabe offered a half-smile. “I just…I could help and so…I thought I would, y’know. Good fortune comes to those who do good… or something.”

“Well, Gabe. That was very nice of you. But I’m afraid…I don’t really have any good fortune to give you in return…bad luck seems to be my forte. My wife left me, I lost my job, it’s just me and Bronx and I -” He cut himself off before he got himself wound up again, running his hand down his face.

Gabe caught his hand, pulling it gently away. It stayed there, tentatively. “Hey. It’s okay.”

Pete took a shuddery breath. “It is?”

“Yeah. It is.” Gabe reassured him, flattening his hand against Pete’s. “It’s all completely okay.” Gabe’s forehead leant and pressed against Pete’s gently. It was like he was asking for permission. Pete entwined their fingers, paused. And then leant forward to kiss him.

Gabe’s lips were surprisingly soft against Pete’s, and although it was only a brief peck before Gabe pulled away, Pete felt like all the breath had been taken out of him, like his lungs had given out in submission to Gabe’s fleeting touch. He nearly slumped forwards against him.

“I don’t think I even caught your name.” Gabe mused.

“Pete. It’s Pete.”

“Well, Pete, I’m dreadfully sorry but I have to leave. I’m in a big rush, you see, and someone kept holding me up at the supermarket…” Gabe winked, let go of Pete’s hand and all of a sudden was gone, the car door swinging shut behind him.

Pete took a moment to reassess. His world had been shifted on its asis. What the fuck was he meant to do to put it back?

When he looked in the hand Gabe had been holding, he realised he might not have to. It was the receipt from his groceries, and scrawled in untidy handwriting at the bottom was a phone number. Pete carefully slid it into his pocket and drove out of the parking lot.

Pete rang Gabe as soon as he unloaded and noticed there was a stray packet of waffles amongst his groceries…


End file.
